The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul) (21 page)

“A lady was kept here,” Lavinia stated, picking up dusty, fine lace doilies and distinctly ladies’ accessories: a stray glove, a fan set onto the mantle of a marble fireplace, a vanity placed rather prominently in a room that wasn’t a bedroom, but... “It all looks like one large ladies’ boudoir,” she added.

Nathaniel strode over to a set of lush, thick red velvet curtains and swept one back, revealing an enormous four-poster bed that was nestled into an alcove crowned by an elaborate trim. Or, it would seem it was a bedroom after all.

Jonathon cleared his throat. “Yes. Supposedly, my great-grandfather had quite a precious secret that he wanted to keep quite hidden indeed.”

“On his own property?” Nathaniel said, seeming a bit more impressed than he should have been. If this was going where I thought it was, this was not something a
gentleman
should aspire to. “I suppose the secrets kept close to home are the most titillating...” he added, tossing a burning glance at Lavinia, who held his gaze and returned it.

I refrained from folding my arms and looking at Jonathon pointedly, though I truly wanted to make him squirm a bit. The sight of the bed had me blushing again, and I cursed my revelatory cheeks. Thankfully, there were other mysteries of the place to catch attention.

Turning away, I gestured to an immense, intriguing door, a massive wrought iron contraption beautifully decorated with floral and ivy patterns, and then gestured back to the smaller door we’d come in through, the one that led out to the little walled garden one might expect of an average cottage. “If
that
is the front door,” I began, then gestured back to the ornate metal garden, “then where does
this
lead?”

Jonathon swung the door wide. A big black chasm was revealed, with stairs leading down into a dark corridor. The first few steps were white marble. Everything else was entirely in shadow.

“To the estate,” Jonathon replied. He couldn’t hold my gaze as I blinked at him.

“So what you’re
saying
is that…” I said slowly, “you’ve brought us to the secret mistress cottage that is
connected
to your estate?” Now I felt justified in folding my arms and glowering. “That’s…that’s what’s going on here?”

“Great-Grandfather’s cottage, this wasn’t like some family tradition,” he clarified, clearly trying to justify this whole presentation as an extreme outlier. “He was an infamous rake, excessive, mad to the point of abject hedonism. My family has worked very hard to restore the Denbury reputation.”

“But still, kidnapping and then bringing the
lady
you’re
courting
to the
mistress’s
cottage?” I countered. Again, I looked over to Lavinia for support in my indignation. I don’t know why I bothered. She was staring rapturously at Nathaniel. I folded my arms, turning back to Jonathon. “Well, it doesn’t strike the best tone.”

“I realize that, but none of this is about you, Natalie,” Jonathon said, bracing me as if that might be a shocking revelation. I scowled. He continued. “And none of this should be seen in the eyes of courtship but of necessity. Everything I have done is about getting into my estate, unseen, still keeping up the guise until I am absolutely certain I could have no possible trail on us in order to safely survey the situation. This is the perfect vantage point, to enter from a secret passage. There will be ways to spy and listen in without ever being seen. In addition, no one in the house—”

His face flashed with fury. “None of those fools who don’t belong there as it is not
their
house could know about any of this, not the passages, anything.” He gestured around him to this unusual setting. “This was a very well-kept secret only between my mother, father, and me. We told none of our staff. The knowledge was bequeathed to my father when his father passed. Since this was a good escape route or hiding place in any emergency, we felt there was no sense sealing it off.”

A fleeting glimmer of sorrow passed over his beautiful face. I assumed thinking of his late parents caused a pang, and I wondered at his strength of confronting all this; a house and family were taken from him, and here he was poised to survey it as if it wasn’t even his anymore. Well, it wasn’t; it had been stolen. But justice would be done. In the end. It had to be. But there were no certainties for us. His resilience in the face of it all was truly astonishing.

Jonathon continued further. “You and Lavinia will be safe here while Nathaniel and I see if the house is occupied or indeed as abandoned as Brinkman indicated it might be from recent exterior surveillance.”

“You mean to leave us here?” I clarified quietly.

“It would be for the best,” Nathaniel stated.

“No, I am coming with you,” I declared.

Jonathon shook his head. “I knew you’d say that, but, Natalie, my dear—”

“If we are about to be bait, as it were, I’d like to know what may be in store. I want to know where and what I might be—perhaps literally—dragged into. As you say, I don’t need to be visible, but waiting here will be maddening—”

“Well, then, if you’re so insistent about it, Miss Stewart,” Nathaniel interrupted crisply, “then we should take every precaution. If we are discovered during this surveillance excursion, we’ll need to play our parts.” He reached into the pockets of his long black frock coat and plucked out the bindings he’d taken off Lavinia, unfurling them through his long fingers once more. He turned to Lavinia with smoldering attention.

Nathaniel grasped Lavinia’s hand and brought it to his lips. “My lady. Would you permit me this little ruse once more? It’s just a game,” he purred.

Lavinia bit her lip, nodded, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she swayed a bit as if her knees were suddenly weak.

I balled my fists, and that blushing flare of fury lit up over my body once more.

“It is
not
a game, Mister Veil. It never has been. Perhaps this all seems like a grand act to you, but please remember people have died in this game. Your dear friend and myself, included. Not to mention your Association, too, if they’re not careful.”

The imperious actor turned a sober look to me. “If we don’t make it a game, Miss Stewart, pretend we’re not frightened, how in God’s name will we have the courage to do what must be done?” he countered earnestly. “I stared into the eyes of that so-called “Master” of it all, and the soullessness I saw there, the pit left behind once all humanity has been removed...” He shuddered. “It defies description. And I’m
very
good with words. Perhaps you think me just an arrogant, carefree player after all. But I thought I glimpsed understanding when we met. I thought you saw, as Jonathon has always seen, that I take the terror I choose to counter with levity
deathly
seriously.”

I nodded, looking away, contrite. He took a step closer to me, waiting to meet my eyes again. When we did, he added, “But you’re not wrong to make sure of it.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

I felt the pressure of Jonathon’s hand in mine. I smiled up at him weakly. “Lead on then, Lord Denbury,” I said, holding out my hands for him to make me out to be the captive again.

He smiled at me gently and was just as gentle as he took the fabric from his breast pocket and wrapped up my wrists, making it look like an intense bind, but it did not chafe in the least. “Thank you for placing your trust in me, Natalie. I do not take it for granted.”

“That makes two of us,” Nathaniel said to Lavinia, running a finger down her blushing cheek.

“How can the devils beat such a blessed team?” I asked, returning his smile.

Oh, but how I knew they’d try.

I closed my eyes a moment as Jonathon did up my hands again, trying to block out thoughts of how the toxin had overtaken me, how I’d been tied down for fear of harming others. How embarrassing. This was not much better, this show of humiliation.

I tried not to think of the helpless position this put us in, how as women we were expected to be the “bait” for demons, as I’d chosen to be once before at the Metropolitan, to lure out evil so that I might best it with a countercurse. That we were constrained to do so was inescapably sickening to me. I was aware that society relegated us to second-class citizens, though I believed with all my heart women were equal creatures under the God that I knew. Human law and opinion just needed to catch up with the divine. Just because I could play the game of my world did not mean I was complicit to it otherwise. Jonathon must have read the struggle on my face; surely he could feel it, for what he offered was a salve:

“I take no pleasure in anything that would give you discomfort, Natalie. I would never subject you to something I didn’t know you could handle with the most impressive aplomb.”

“Thank you, dear,” I replied, opening my eyes to take in his kind gaze. He’d always been as much of my champion as I was of myself. Bless him for that. “Thank you. For such a thing as this is not easy to stomach.”

“For a girl like you, hardly,” he said with a little laugh. “And I’d not have that any other way.” He tied the knot of the bindings, loose in truth, but looking quite thorough to an outside eye. He kissed me fondly on the cheek and stepped away.

Jonathon took his carriage lantern, Nathaniel, too, and as he went down the marble steps ahead, he called back to us. “Wait one moment, ladies, while we light the torches on ahead.”

A dank, dark corridor was revealed beyond the descending set of stairs. The fine trappings near the mouth of the corridor, presumably all that a lady ensconced in that private cottage would have seen, were enough of a courtesy. But the route to get to her was something else entirely.

Jonathon and Nathaniel darted back up the corridor and up the marble slab stairs to fetch us. They led us each by the elbows down into the corridor, taking care with our balance. None of us were in a rush, as everything had an oppressive weight of dread about it. Poor Jonathon, who should have been so excited to return home. Now home was enemy territory that had to be approached by subterfuge...

The connecting passage was like an endless tomb. Dirt-packed walls were reinforced by wood and stone beams. The soot of torches and lanterns smeared big black tongues up the slightly arched ceiling that was not far above our heads. An interminable length lay ahead of us. Jonathon and Nathaniel had only lit the periodic torches for a few paces on, but Jonathon held out a lit taper. I assumed there were more yet to light. I wasn’t necessarily claustrophobic by nature—after all, I lived in New York City—but this would try anyone’s sense of space.

None of us felt compelled to say anything. I had a thousand questions as to what to expect, but I doubted Jonathon could offer me any answers. We were playing this game entirely by ear. I tried not to think about any number of my nightmares where terrible things happened down long corridors where I was, for all intents and purposes, trapped... When Jonathon and Nathaniel lit the lamps, I just prayed they would stay lit for us and not be snuffed out by God knows what... Hadn’t I promised myself I’d avoid corridors? I was the worst tempter of fate that ever lived.

I had no sense of time or length of passage other than a great deal of it. Finally the mouth of it seemed to widen as if we’d come to the estuary of a river. Before us lay another set of stairs. Out from the tunnel rose another large metal door. Jonathon ascended the set of stairs, fished for the same key in yet another impressive iron lock, and was very careful to turn the lock slowly so that the latch would not echo.

“Stay quiet until I can determine if we’ve any measure of cover or safety,” Jonathon whispered.

He gestured us through the door and into a strange space beyond, a little landing, wooden panels all around us and a few strange pipes, levers, and meters and small vertical slots in the panels before us. He very slowly shifted a lever, and a slot opened. There was darkness beyond. A sliver of light could be seen far in the distance.

“What’s on the other side?” Lavinia whispered.

“Our library.” He peered into the dim vertical opening once more. “Obviously, no one is feeling literarily inclined at the moment,” Jonathon replied, still in a whisper.

“What is all this?” I gestured around me to the other levers, which I assumed may be other peep holes, but that didn’t explain the pipes or meter.

“When the house was fitted with gas fixtures,” Jonathon began, still keeping his voice hushed, “my father became rather entranced with the secret passages and with their possible advantage. I always thought he was a bit paranoid, but now I wonder if he actually was on to something. He was so protective of Mother, all my life, terrified of losing her, that I thought he was going a bit mad over it. I wonder if some part of him foresaw their doom...” Jonathon looked at the wooden landing beneath our feet. “I know Mother had a suitor early in her life that had caused her trouble. She’d only mentioned it briefly, when she was instructing me how to be a proper gentleman. It would seem he’d proven the very opposite. I hope I wasn’t blind, that there was something I should have seen, been forewarned—”

I placed my hand on his arm. “You mustn’t think like that. There’s nothing you could have done, truly. And you
have
become the good and proper gentleman she’d be so proud of...”